“I shall take a week’s holiday, and move everything myself. I flatter myself I am worth two ordinary workmen,” he laughed, lightly. “We had better send a few words to our Christmas guests, Grace, and explain the situation to them.” But Grace, with a sudden rush of color to her cheeks, negatived this.
“Let us have one more Christmas in our usual fashion. I—I don’t think I shall ever care for Christmas again,” she said, as she bent down to speak caressingly to her dogs, and to hide the rush of tears to her eyes.
“You shall do all you want to do, dear,” Val said, tenderly, and then he looked at her half quizzically, “and do you know, I fancy I see something lurking in the corner of your eyes. Have you not been formulating some little plan of your own that you have not told me about?”
Grace smiled faintly.
“Why am I such a transparent person, I wonder? Yes,” she added, frankly, a moment later, “I have a plan which I was going to try and put in action before all this happened, Val. I want you to ask Mark to consent to our having grannie to live with us. I am most unhappy about her. She is so old, and suffers so much, and I—I fear,” Grace said, in a low tone—“I fear, Val, she does not get the attention she needs. Ellen made me very sad about her the other day. Of course, dear, if you object, we won’t move in the matter, especially now,” and Grace paused abruptly.
Val, however, took the matter up warmly.
“Now is just the moment to speak, Grace. I have already decided on our new home. We will take that pretty house that poor Mrs. Bentley has been so anxious to let ever since her husband’s death. I will go about it to-morrow. We must remain in Dynechester. Apart from my appointment, I am quite sure you would never be so happy anywhere else.”
“I feel,” Grace said, “that I ought to urge you to let me live in London, then I could make a home for Sacha and for you, too, but——”
The brother understood the “but” to the full.
“Mrs. Bentley’s house is charming,” he said, cheerily; “it is almost as old as this, and in your skillful hands will be quite as picturesque. We can get into it without any very great bother, and to-night I will write to Mark and propose your plan about grannie.”